Immigration: Labour’s great conundrum

By Marjorie Smith

It’s the issue that seems to be top of the political agenda in many areas of Britain; a multi-faceted political issue that has no easy answers, no easy solutions and creates differing political tensions amongst many Labour party supporters and wavering voters. It also seems to be a policy area ‘that dare not speak its name’ in polite Labour society – until Gordon Brown’s speech this morning.

The right and centre-right spotted the political benefit of hyping immigration as a stick to beat Labour with several years ago. The drip, drip, drip of political poison over this issue has been led by the obnoxious Daily Express and the right-wing pressure group Migration Watch over the past several years.

The rest of the right’s media forces have also realised the potency of the issue and have waded in on the issue, blithely swallowing any press release issued by Migration Watch as indisputable fact. The Daily Mail recently even went so far as to spin a story that claimed that mass immigration was a secret Labour plot to change the face of Britain.

What is worse is that the Tories have employed a strategy that allows them to keep themselves at arm’s length whilst pretending to be “compassionate Conservatives”. They have used well-funded pressure groups such as The Taxpayers Alliance and Migration Watch as attack dogs on public expenditure and immigration policy to distort the political debate in this country so as to paint the Labour party as weak and compliant. Of course this then has the effect of burnishing the Tory party’s image as reasonable and decisive.

Immigration was always going to be potentially embarrassing issue for Labour as its internationalist principles would leave it instinctively in a defensive posture when confronted. Despite the public hard line approach of Jack Straw and David Blunkett as Home Secretaries as well as a Number 10 edict to radically reduce the number of asylum seekers appealing against Home Office decisions, it is apparent that Labour remains uniquely vulnerable on immigration policy. It also goes a long way to explain the success of the BNP in exploiting this issue.

The Tories have learnt from New Labour’s adoption of triangulation. By not commenting consistently on the issue they have allowed the far right to dominate the response from the right. In giving the BNP political space they have managed to give the far-right a modicum of political impact, yet know that this would never be translated into any prospects of success at a general election under the First Past the Post system and that it would have very, very limited impact on their voter share. However, the Tories’ main benefit is that it will allow them to present themselves as the reasonable face of a tolerant Britain that will take steps to (reluctantly, as they claim) ‘properly’ control immigration. This will be presented as a necessary step that has to be taken, otherwise the BNP would prosper as a result of Labour weakness.

The main political question is what is the strength of feeling on the issue in marginals as well as the rest of the country; what sort of response should the party should develop; and what arguments can it deploy on the doorsteps in order to convince voters (and the more reasonable media outlets) that scare stories about immigration should be treated with the contempt they deserve?

It does appear that the issue is a hot potato on the doorsteps both in working and middle class areas and that it is the subject of chatter across the country. It seems to currently inform perceptions of the character of the main political parties and could be a pivotal issue as to how voters make their electoral choices.

From both apocryphal feedback in the mainstream media as well as opinion polls and expert analysis, it appears that the only policy area that the BNP has found traction is in the area of immigration. At moment, the more the BNP agitate on the issue and Labour isn’t perceived to have a coherent response, the more votes are lost in both working and middle class areas. It’s not the BNP who benefit in the main from the seepage of Labour support; it’s the Tories, content to keep quiet as votes swing their way.

Thus, the issue needs to be addressed at several levels to be able to formulate a distinct message on the doorstep and in radio and television studios over the next 6 months leading up to the election.

This requires three different approaches to three very different patterns of immigration. Intra-EU movement of people; economic migration from outside of the EU; and asylum seekers.

Firstly, let us nail the lie that we are being swamped by Poles, Lithuanians tc and others from the rest of the EU who take advantage of free movement to move to the UK. Many of the Polish migrants work here for a relatively short time and then return home, the vast majority paying taxes and national insurance; very few claim benefits of any kind.

The consequences of closing our borders to citizens of other EU countries (which would require withdrawal from the EU) would have devastating consequences for millions of UK citizens. Not only would UK citizens be unable to work in the rest of the EU, unlike now, but the hundreds of thousands of Britons who live in Spain, France and the rest of the EU would lose their residency rights. Furthermore, the dreams and aspirations of many hoping to own their own little place in the sun would be shattered. Malaga or Margate, anybody? Immigration from the rest of the EU and emigration to there also, is clearly a two-way street, where the benefits far outweigh the disadvantages.

If we turn in on ourselves our horizons dramatically shrink. It should also be noted that if we ever pulled up the drawbridge with the rest of the EU, then France, Belgium, Holland would have little if any incentive to stop people trying to enter the UK.

Secondly is the thorniest problem of all: economic migration. Much of this is initially driven by desperation and despair. People from sub-Saharan Africa, from Turkey, Kurdistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, the poorest parts of China, etc., all arrive with a legitimate reason to believe that their lives would be improved if they could enter the UK. Most have a case on hardship grounds alone to merit consideration. The age-old problem is where do you draw the line?

Thirdly, the UK also ‘suffers’ from a unique combination of circumstances concerning immigration. Not only do we have a large number of immigrant communities already based in the UK that can act as a support group to new arrivals. We also have a historical link with many countries as the aftermath of Empire, when we rapaciously plundered such places.

These immigration ‘drivers’ mean that the UK would likely be the preferred destination of choice for many economic immigrants aiming to enter the EU when compared with many other Member States (although France shares many similarities with its former colonies also being a catalyst). Hence, even if we were the most compassionate people on earth, an open door policy is unworkable.

Therefore, immigration controls are a necessity and the more that is done to dissuade immigrants even setting off on perilous journeys across continents, the better. There is nothing wrong in rigorous but fair immigration controls. They reward the legitimate immigrant who goes through the system, and deter criminal gangs who exploit the weak and the vulnerable for their own ends.

Labour has a good story to tell on immigration. It is a story of fairness, compassion and understanding. But this has to be allied to a recognition that only in times of sustained economic prosperity can entry be granted to those who have the skills or who will fill jobs nobody else wants to do. It is also a fact of life, that as the UK population ages, we will need a radically improved birth rate (unlikely) or significant immigration in order, for example, to keep our pensions sustainable and our hospitals and care homes running, as well as the wider economy performing well.

The asylum system has been abused. Let’s admit it, desperate people do desperate things. Yet it is Labour who have introduced a high degree of rationality into the system and it is only through perseverance that an asylum system built on intelligent fairness be embedded.

Make no mistake, even under a rabid right-wing Government in the UK, illegal immigration and asylum seeking wouldn’t disappear, it wouldn’t even decline. Labour doesn’t need to allow itself to be tarred with this brush. As for workers from other EU Member States, that is a zero sum game where we stand to lose a lot more than we could theoretically gain.

An alternative version of this post first appeared on Marjorie’s blog, Left Wing Polemics.